Olympic Results 2012: How Japan's Tie Impacts Women's Soccer Field

Through the first week of the 2012 Olympics, Japan's women's soccer team is one of several subjects of controversy involving fixing matches.

On Tuesday, Japan and South Africa played to a scoreless tie. It was a shocking result because Japan is the defending World Cup champion.

Martin Rogers of Yahoo! Sports reported the story on Wednesday, and it has sparked a debate over fixing a match. 

Japan did not throw a match to lose, but they played not to win. 

Coach Norio Sasaki admitted to telling his players to play defense instead of attacking. It had to be difficult to tell players to not go all-out against a team they could have easily beaten. However, the coach elected to go for the tie and not have to travel for the next game.

Japan was able to lock up second place with a tie, which meant the team was able to play in the same stadium in Cardiff, Wales, for its quarterfinal game. If they had won, they would have won Group F and been forced to travel from Wales to Scotland.

Was it acceptable or not? How does it affect the rest of the field?

The Field

The result of the Japan-South Africa game only had an impact on one side of the bracket.

The USWNT, New Zealand, Canada and Great Britain are unaffected by the result. None of these teams would have faced Japan either way. The USWNT already has an advantage because they were placed on the opposite side of the bracket from Japan and Brazil.

On the other side of the bracket, every team was impacted.

Sweden won Group F because of Japan's tie, and they moved on to face France in the quarterfinals. Sweden would have been the underdog whether they faced France or Brazil.

France benefited the most from the tie because they managed to get an easier draw. No disrespect to Sweden, but Japan is the defending World Cup champion and is a tougher draw. France beat Sweden on Friday 2-1 and advanced to the semifinals.

The team hurt the most was Brazil. Instead of facing Sweden in the quarterfinals, they had to face Japan. Brazil is one of the top three teams in the world but had to face Japan earlier than expected. It was supposed to be a Brazil-Japan semifinal matchup, but the tie switched the matchups.

Result

Japan beat Brazil 2-0 on Friday, so the strategy worked for them. They will now face France on Monday, so they will still play the teams they were supposed to play. 

Brazil was knocked out earlier than expected, and they will not get to play in a semifinal matchup that could have been a classic. 

Fixing matches will be something to watch out for in future tournaments. It is a problem that needs to have penalties, but Japan was able to take advantage of the situation. 

With the ways things played out in the quarterfinals, the fixed match had very little impact on the tournament. Although Brazil was the victim as a result, Japan was the better team on Friday.

Was it wrong for Japan to intentionally tie? This controversy needs to be looked at when the tournament ends.